It's raining...

It's pouring...

I think all this rain is making us a bit silly.
See that "field" behind the girls?
It's not so much a field anymore.
More like a shallow lake.
If this rain continues we may invest in some canoes and life jackets.

Mmmm...

Guess what I made today...

Homemade english muffins.

They were good.

I had to ask myself "why haven't I made these before?"

We especially liked them with our blueberry freezer jam.

Next time, I'm thinking cinnamon raisin ones are going to be cooking or maybe rosemary cheddar cheese.

Heron

Last week, just outside our fence, we had a visit from our neighborhood heron.

My little helper

Matthew has become quite a good helper lately.

He washes tables

He spins the lettuce for our salads.

And he helps load and monitor the performance of the washing machine.

He also loves to help me vacuum, lift heavy things, and set the table. The other day I was preparing dinner for us and for another family that had just had a new baby. I was getting close to finishing and Matthew kept opening up the dishwasher (which is a frequent occurrence everyday). I was trying to keep him occupied with other things so that he wouldn't keep grabbing the clean dishes or silverware or climbing on the dishwasher door while I finished up. Finally after some unsuccessful attempts I figured I would have to put him in the family room with the baby gate up so I could get the dinner finished. Right as I was getting him to put him there I realized that one of the forks he had escaped with from the dishwasher was on the table. Suddenly I realized what he was trying to do - he was trying to set the table. He had helped me with that a couple times before. I set him down and said "Matt do you want to set the table?" I held out some forks for him and he laughed and gave a big sigh as if he was relieved I finally understood what he was trying to do. He proceeded to put all the forks on the table in a little jumbled line and then was so happy. I'm glad I realized what he was trying to do and didn't just corral him up in the family room without letting him help.

Now whenever he knows dinner is almost ready he is the silverware guy and takes his "setting the table" job very seriously.

Last week's snowstorm.

Well, Alia described last week as "one of the best weeks of her life" so you know that we had A LOT of fun in the snow. This snow storm made up for the lack we saw on our Christmas vacation to Utah (we saw maybe 2 snowflakes while staying there).

The girls daily routine was pretty much go outside in the morning and play until lunchtime. During lunch throw all your wet snow clothes in the dryer and head out as soon as they were dry to play until dinner. I kept them supplied with warm cups of hot chocolate, spiced rice milk and egg drop soup too.

Our next door neighbors (who our girls play with all the time) took our girls sledding along with their family on this big hill near our neighborhood two days in a row where they had so much fun.

We love snow!!!